While a station first operated on 650 kHz in
Ashland, Massachusetts, in 1997, the underlying license dates back to May 19, 1970, when WSCV in
Peterborough, New Hampshire, began operations on 1050 kHz. The station was owned by Frank and Beverly Harms of
Syracuse, New York, and managed by John Lawrence Scott, who had hosted
children's television programs in Syracuse, and had started up an
FM sister station, WSLE 92.1 (now
WDER-FM). The station continued to serve Peterborough (later under the
call signs of WMDK and WRPT) until 1991, when the station closed down. A few months later, he turned around and purchased WRPT outright, On February 9, 1997, the new WRPT signed on with
talk programming from the Talk America network, operating from a transmitter site in
Framingham shared with WKOX (now
WXKS). Local talk programming was subsequently added to the schedule (such as an afternoon show hosted by
Upton Bell), much of it simulcast on the original
WSRO (1470 AM) in
Marlborough after Langer bought it in 1998. In October 1999, the station took the WJLT call letters from 1060 as part of a larger format switch that saw the talk format move to the latter frequency as WMEX, with the
contemporary Christian music that had been on 1060 migrating to 650; the switch was completed on-air on January 24, 2000. However, one year later, the station began mixing talk programming back onto the afternoon schedule, as WMEX was converted to business talk station WBIX. The next year, the station switched to a religious talk format, WSRO returned to secular talk in February 2003, primarily from the Langer-owned
National Radio Network (which operated out of the same facility in Framingham that WSRO broadcast from); by 2007, the English-language programs had gradually been replaced by a lineup of programming in
Portuguese, featuring religious and secular programs aimed at Framingham's Brazilian community. During the 2010s, Langer Broadcasting expanded the reach of its Portuguese programming. In 2013, having already upgraded WSRO's signal to better reach
Cambridge and Boston, it announced plans to launch similar programming for the Boston area on 1410 AM in early 2014, operating from a
Hyde Park studio; this station eventually became
WZBR. That August, Langer agreed to purchase
WBUR's 1240 AM facility in
West Yarmouth (on
Cape Cod) to serve the Portuguese-speaking community there; that station would become
WBAS. (A plan in March 2009 to launch similar programming on
WJOE, operating from the Framingham studio but serving western Massachusetts and other parts of New England, did not materialize.) By 2015, the three stations were jointly branded as "Rede ABR". Langer took the station and its translator silent on July 9, 2020, due to financial difficulties; WBAS and WZBR (the latter of which had left "Rede ABR" to carry a brokered
R&B format a few years earlier) also concurrently suspended operations. WSRO returned to the air October 27, 2020, playing
jazz standards. it was the fourth station to make this transition, joining
WWFD in
Frederick, Maryland;
WMGG in
Tampa, Florida; and
WFAS in
White Plains, New York. the shutdown of WSRO and WZBR followed the death of Alex Langer. Both stations had been put up for sale prior to his death; WBAS had already been sold off in 2021. but again suspended operations on May 31. On February 25, 2025, Langer Broadcasting Group requested the cancellation of the WSRO license. It was cancelled on March 7, 2025. ==Translator==